Tuesday, August 2, 2011

A Bit of Theorycrafting...

Here's a bit of news straight from Professor Falmea in the August 2011 Ravenwood Newsletter:

August is here, and despite Lydia's best efforts to keep it cool, the heat is certainly winning that duel here at KingsIsle's offices. Thankfully, it's always temperate in the Spiral!

We've got some really exciting news coming up for you this month young Wizards, but I can't say too much yet or it'll spoil the surprise. Just know that there will be some new challenges for Wizards who are level 25 and up, and a brand new challenge for Wizards who thought Waterworks was difficult! Watch for more information coming very, very soon!

As for the rest of this month's newsletter, we have our wonderful Book of the Month Club, a happy birthday shoutout to Wizard101 Central, a change to KIFreeGames rewards and a very important message from Mr Lincoln about protecting your Wizards. Read on!

I have been thinking about that middle paragraph, which I have bolded and italicized for your reading, and I have been able to come up with a few possibilities.

First, I'm going to rattle off the towers with difficult bosses we have now in the game, so bare with me here while I refresh your memory:

Briskbreeze Tower | The Warehouse | Waterworks

Let's start with Briskbreeze. This tower, located in Wizard City's Colossus Boulevard, came for level 50+ wizards a while back and is made up of 10 floors. The bosses here were the first we had seen use cheats to get ahead of us wizards. You could receive a special ring for your school in this tower. I know some wizards who still use this ring from time to time, depending upon which sort of situation they're in.

The Warehouse (also known as "Spiral Geographic") is located in Reagent's Square in Marleybone and was created as part of the plot leading to Celestia, though it is not required to access CL. You have to obtain the Spiral Key and defeat the bosses here. This tower gives you the Wayfinder gear (hat, robe, boots) which isn't that great of gear when you measure it against the other gear we have, even at level 45.

In Triton Avenue resides The Waterworks, a tower for level 60 wizards. Both the first boss and final bosses use cheats to try and get ahead. Here, you can receive level 60 gear, aka the best gear in the game. Wizards strive to find the easiest way out of this tower, and many succeed in getting out within an hour. Supposedly the hardest instance in the game, wizards have squashed it like a bug.

In any case, we're definitely due for a new challenge and I hope you are ready for some major amounts of rambling.

There have been 2 towers in Wizard City and one in Marleybone. KI has skipped over Krokotopia, and I'm not exactly sure if this is on purpose or totally unintentional. Falmea says some of these updates will be for level 25+ wizards, which means, if it is a tower, it must reside in either Wizard City or Krokotopia. Because there are already 2 towers in WC, I am inferring this tower will reside somewhere in KT. If this is true, where will it be? Many wizards are curious about that random island in the sky. I believe I heard somewhere that KI originally was going to use that for something, but then left it there. Perhaps this is where the new tower will be? Teleport up to the island and meet some baddies? And what sort of cheats will the monsters have? We've seen interrupting meteors, interrupting heals, changes in the type of round, smokescreens and hexes. What could we see next? Interrupting frost giant? Probably not, considering this could be a 25+ tower. And what sort of drops will there be? New low-level gear? Crown gear? That would be pretty sweet.

Or perhaps it's another "new street" like Crab Alley, which may lead to the next tower!

A level 25+ tower seems highly unlikely, but a new street like Crab Alley sounds good to me! This mini-street is located in Triton Avenue. An area in KT that is comparable to Triton Avenue would be... either the Krokosphinx or The Well of Spirits. There does happen to be one place in the Well of Spirits that gets me thinking. On the other side of the Barracks lies a doorway that has been blocked off by rubble. Perhaps this will open up to be something new? There are many sealed passageways and rooms throughout all of Krokotopia, so it will be exciting to see - if they do use KT - what will come next!

Now on to bigger and better things - new challenges greater than Waterworks!

Since WW is a level 60 instance, I'm going to say this will also be level 60. It makes sense, since this is supposed to be more difficult in the long run. In Waterworks, we saw 2 cheating bosses. Perhaps 3? 4? Maybe this will be more like Briskbreeze and have 10 different floors? Maybe it continues the story arc with the spiral keys, though there is no door to open at this point in time. Is KI getting ready to release a new world? Oh, the possibilities!

One possibility that seems more likely to me than others is the usage of that lonely floating island or some other inaccessible area of KT. If this does continue with finding Spiral Keys, KT would be the next place to look. If not? Well, how about Marleybone again? We still haven't set tail or paw into Barkingham Palace!

Who knows what KingsIsle has in store for us?! We'll all just have to wait and see.